Loving Yourself: A Bit About Me

I realize that perhaps this blog lacks a single reader, but to anyone who may happen to stumble across this blog, welcome and thank you! I want this to be an outlet for creativity and individuality; a place where I let myself free of society’s reigns to dream and ponder the previously diagnosed “impossible.” 

Do you ever take a moment to look around you and just feel cluttered with the weight of life? If only you could free yourself of worries and stress brought about by work, school, or even within your mind.  As blessed as we are to live in such a progressive society, other burdens and stresses are right in front of each of us, each and every day. We are subconsciously reiterated portrayal of “normal,” “right,” “brilliant.” However, each of the titles we are to wear are facades, external images we try so hard to portray. The true, pure brilliance lies within our internal beings. This brilliance is our creativity, our personalities, our thoughts and ideas. We are exposed at a very young age this idea of “perfection” that soon becomes the unrealistic goal we all dream of achieving. That is the very problem though, this “goal” is not real… it in itself is a facade, an act, an image. (As much as I strive to reach for the “impossible,” this goal of perfection is simply a hallucination, something visible on the surface, but not really in existence.) 

Look around you. Life is constantly a portrayal, sometimes of our best features and other’s of our good, bad, and plain ugly. Whether we are roaming the aisles at the grocery store or posting a picture on a social media network, we are always watched and judged by something or someone. 

Life is truly a book and every judgement is based on the cover, our external appearances. If someone is thin, we assume they have an eating disorder. If someone is larger, they are immediately “fat” or “overweight.” A pimple on a face marks you as "imperfect." A bad grade marks you as “dumb.” Today, not following this “status quo” of an image knocks you out of the game completely. We are growing up in age where every aspect of our life is a constant comparison to those around us. How sad! 

But there is a silver lining inside every person and that is what is beautiful: our hearts, creativity, personality, differences. Everyone is beautiful on the inside. I truly believe that no person’s internal body and spirit has a single imperfection. Hatred, envy, anger, any form of ugliness is external because it covers up one’s lack of security and confidence within themselves.

What a shame! Our society has made its norm based off of a “lose, lose” scenario. If you’re thin, it’s wrong. If you’re not thin, it’s wrong. If you’re quiet, you’re anti-social. If you’re loud, you’re obnoxious. Amongst all these things, if you put imperfection past you and truly believe in yourself, society will call you conceded. So at what point will we tell society to “Be Quiet!!!” and live our lives without wasting a worry on what society thinks?

When people used to say “you’re worth more than your number on a scale,” I would smile because for a second I believed it. But then, I thought to myself that that was meant for a skinny demographic with a self-esteem issue, not me because my “number” was too big. How silly of me, how immature of me, how ignorant. I drove myself miserable living my life with this negative front. At some point, I told myself I had to begin accepting myself or never would this feeling pass. I had to love myself for all that I was, and not hate myself for what I was never going to be.

There were days when I would look at myself and smile. I loved, and still love, my smile. I would look within and love my personality and loving heart. I would grin admiring my independence and my ability to always be myself. But then, I would frown and tears would form in my eyes because I looked at my body. Gosh how I hated my body. I was my worst critic, I saw what no one else could even see. This scenario would be a daily, hourly, occurrence in my life and mind. I still battle with it, but over time, I have come to truly love myself.

The reason I am sharing this story is because I feel as though many people can relate to it. It doesn't matter if you weigh 100 lbs. or 300 lbs., as long as you see the good in yourself and others, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

The goal of this message is that we all have our insecurities. Whether they be about our body and weight/height, our grades in school, our value, the flaws the bully sees, whatever it may be. It didn't matter how many people told me I was beautiful, I never believed them because society portrayed a 5’2, 115 lbs. girl as what I should be, but the fact was I wasn't that, and I never will be. I thought that once I lost “x” number of lbs., I would be happy. In all honesty, I would have probably found something else to criticize and hate about myself next.

There are still days that I battle with insecurities and I always will, but never will I allow myself to stop loving me again. I am too good for that, and anyone reading this who battles with insecurity, you are too good for that too!

I’ll leave you with this quote by Lucille Ball:

“Love yourself first and everything else falls in line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”

I’d love to end with something poetic, but I think Lucille pretty much hit the nail on the head.

xoxo,
Sarah Beth